


Stay With Me

by primeideal



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Sequence, Extra Treat, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-13 17:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20177860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/pseuds/primeideal
Summary: Rachel wants to be crazy. Cassie stays anyway.





	Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ConvenientAlias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/gifts).

> For the song prompt "What The Hell" by Avril Lavigne.

“You should write a book,” I said, only half-kidding.

“Oh, yeah.” Rachel rolled her eyes. "About what? All the wild side-trips we took through Z-Space? The Ellimist shunting us from one timeline to another?"

“About—war.” I chose my words carefully. I'd faced down Controllers, War-Princes, even paparazzi, but I still didn't know how to handle this Rachel. No one did, really. “What changes, what stays the same.”

“A pile of excuses for why I’m a mess? Don’t blame it on me, blame it on the Helmacrons’ shrinking ray?”

“Something like that,” I said. As ever, she’d seen through me.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” Rachel asked. Another anniversary, another photo shoot.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“You have politicians to sweet-talk and Hork-Bajir to translate for. You don’t need—” She gestured at the interviewers, “all this.”

“Neither do you,” I said.

I longed for the privacy of thoughtspeak, where we could target our words to each other or our allies. Strategizing had been easier when tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed.

“It beats the alternatives,” she muttered.

I’d endured too much to take up her burdens. We’d fought for freedom; I was free to turn away. I asked anyway.

* * *

“Can you confirm if Tobias has departed for the Andalite homeworld?”

“Ships leave Earth every month,” my video-self rattled off.

“Are he and Rachel are still in a relationship?”

“It wouldn’t be my place to tell you, even if I knew.”

Rachel turned the broadcast off. “Idiots. It’s not your job to cover for me.”

“Fat chance,” I said. “Next time you get in trouble, I’m going to have to kiss you to give them a distraction.”

“Next time?”

She turned to me, lips tilted open, leaned forward. Oh.

“Better keep practicing,” she whispered, “I get in lots of trouble.”


End file.
